Armor

A/n: I don’t quite remember the exact dialogue from some of the parts, so I’ve improvised. Also, this shit is really long for something written by me. It appears that this oneshot series has grown exponentially. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.


“Whatever that thing was, it sure wasn’t human,” Kaidan said as he looked at the pile of human-like goo they had just gunned down.

“We have that gas upgrade for our grenades. Do you want us to use it, Commander?” Garrus asked. The former C-Sec officer’s eyes narrowed on the door in front of them. Who knew what waited inside?

“I…” Shepard closed her eyes and swallowed, “unless either of you are holding out on me, we’re out of grenades.” She didn’t need to look at the team behind her. Garrus would flex his mandibles in worry, and Kaidan’s hand would go behind his head to rub his neck. The Lieutenant always did this when he was uncomfortable.

“How are our shields? Can we take a few hits?” Kaidan’s low voice resounded behind her. “If we can get close enough, we can hopefully knock them out.”

Shepard chuckled. “Like Manuel?” she asked, turning around to flash her team a wry grin. Sometimes she got carried away with things.

“Yes, just like that,” the Lieutenant mused. His introduction to Shepard was odd indeed; the Commander smacked a defenseless, insane man upside the head to get him to shut up. It was funny when he later thought about it. But, in that same mission they lost one of their own. He had the distinct feeling that this mission would be bittersweet as well.

“Alright,” Shepard said as pulled her shotgun from its holster, “try to knock them out physically, but don’t take any chances. I need both of you to get out of this mission unharmed.”

“Ready for anything, Commander,” Kaidan nodded as he drew his sidearm.

“Please, don’t say that,” Shepard mumbled as she pushed the button to open the bay door.

In front of them, a small army of Thorian creepers crouched. Within seconds, though, they slowly awoke one by one; each mindless plant minion was bent on the goal of destroying the intruders. Shepard took aim and fired. The sickening yet satisfying splat of the destroyed creeper awoke the next. Above the trio, colonists fired upon them. The kinetic shields weakened under their desperate mind controlled blasts but were not destroyed.

The Lieutenant stealthily flanked along the left side of the slow-moving creepers toward the distracted colonists. When he was within six feet of them, he leaped, his powerful leg muscles propelling him forward. His training kicked into overdrive as his hand descended upon the colonist on the right, incapacitating him. He whirled to the left with his elbow extended; the second colonist crumbled to the ground. Using the makeshift cover, he threw as many creepers as possible against the far wall with his biotics, watching in morbid fascination as they exploded like popped water balloons on contact. The garage was cleared.

The successive areas were cleared of hostiles in a similar fashion; more colonists crumbled to the ground under the marines’ deft blows. They crept down the corridor to where Zhu’s Hope waited. A sudden rain of bullets signaled that they had been spotted. Shepard stopped at the doorway, her hands gripping her shotgun. The shields were depleted.

Garrus leaned back as far as he could against the cover that the left side of the door provided. The situation wasn’t good. They couldn’t wait for the shields to recover; the colonists knew they were there and could make an assault at any time. He looked over at Shepard, waiting for orders. Would this woman allow them to fire upon the innocent humans? The turian hoped she would see that the greater good was in completing the mission.

He blinked for a second as he gazed upon the Commander. She stood in a half crouching position, her body ready to spring at a moment’s notice. Behind her, Alenko assumed the same position, his large form dwarfing hers. His back was pressed against the wall; there wasn’t much room in the tiny alcove. Shepard pressed herself against him, the top of her head only coming to his shoulder. The differences between the male and female humans in front of him were stark, yet these strange creatures looked like they belonged together. Was it always like this with male and female humans? Did they usually appear to fit so perfectly against each other? He tried to picture Williams in the same position and concluded a definitive ‘no’. There was something about these two that was different. Garrus turned his hawk-like eyes to the colonists; he would observe them more carefully when his life wasn’t endangered.

“I want a clean sweep,” Shepard’s voice rang out over the gunfire, “nothing hostile lives to take a second shot. We can’t risk it when there’s a galaxy at stake.”

Both members of the team signaled an affirmative; Shepard quickly darted from her cover to a preselected shipping crate that offered cover as well. The team dispersed, gunning down the colonists with superior firepower. Shepard darted to another place of cover and crouched in a puddle of Hollis Blake to fire upon more Thorian creepers. With the area cleared, the team battled their way to the freight controls.

The remaining colonists were systematically gunned down. Shepard watched stone-faced as Fai Dan overcame the Thorian’s mind control and shot himself. She had a job to do. There would be time to think about this later.

Shepard walked over to the crane controls, her jaw tensed. Hana Murakami’s body lay over the panel. Even in death, the colonist’s hands tightly gripped the control panel in an effort to block the invaders from the Thorian’s lair. The Commander attempted to push the corpse out of the way, but the effort was for naught. They had to get to the Thorian before more geth arrived.

Shepard stood behind the corpse, trying to get decent footing in the puddle of blood in which she stood. Wrapping her arms around the torso, she pulled with all her might. The Commander lost her balance and quickly slid to the ground. The body remained where it was; Shepard landed on her bottom in the puddle of blood with a shallow splash, her hands trying desperately to break her fall.

The other members of the team whipped their heads around at the noise. They had been rechecking the perimeter to make sure that Shepard was covered. Kaidan blinked at Shepard’s awkward situation and strode over to where she sat. He offered her a sweet smile and his hand to help her up.

Shepard smiled in turn and took his hand. Blood transferred from her arm to his, but he chose to ignore it.

“Well,” Shepard looked up at the Lieutenant through her eyelashes, “It’s good to see that chivalry isn’t dead.”

“Of course not, ma’am,” he smiled, his cheeks staining red.

The Spectre chuckled to herself. Here she was an ex-member of the Tenth Street Reds, the ‘Butcher of Torfan’, and the first human Spectre. She had just gunned down the majority of a colony of mind controlled humans and was covered in blood and God knew what else. And her subordinate officer was blushing and smiling over her. It led her to conclude one of two things: either he was raving mad, or she still had it. Perhaps they were both mad and both had it. She glanced over at the Lieutenant who was in the process of extracting the corpse from the crane control panel. Her eyes appraised his form and she concluded that, without a doubt, he sure had it. The Lieutenant was a damn fine piece of art.

Garrus watched Shepard’s exchange with the Lieutenant. Humans had many phrases, so he would have to find out what Shepard meant when she said that chivalry wasn’t dead. The former C-Sec officer felt a slight thrill at getting a chance to investigate a most interesting case. There was something more between these two humans and he would get to the bottom of it. He readied himself when he saw the crane lift the freighter to uncover a set of stairs.

The trio set off to find the Thorian, their weapons drawn. This time, they would really be ready for anything.

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The Thorian had a distinct smell. To Shepard, it was like the many dumpsters she had to wade through in order to find food when she was a troubled teen. At least they had been able to dispatch of the Creepers in a well ventilated area before; now they were forced to shoot the blasted things when they were not more than a foot away.

“I understand the slapping and clawing, but is the vomit really necessary?” the Lieutenant said as he reappeared from behind a corner. His olive complexion took on a greenish tone to match the Thorian goo that covered him.

“I wish I knew why as well,” Shepard sympathized. It seemed like the goal of the creepers was to completely disgust them into not wanting to bother with the Thorian. When they would get within a foot of a creeper, it would projectile vomit all over whoever was nearby. Shepard looked over at Garrus, who seemed to be relatively unaffected by the present circumstances.

“There can’t be many nodes left; that thing should drop soon,” he said as he trotted off to the next room. Shepard and her Lieutenant exchanged odd looks and followed the turian. The team covered the Commander as she blasted the neural node with her shotgun. Finally, the node gave way and the Thorian fell into the abyss, displacing the rancid air as it went. The creepers all simultaneously exploded upon their master’s defeat; the group was showered in a rain of the vilest substance they had ever encountered.

“Oh,” Garrus blinked, “now I smell it. That is… disgusting.” He holstered his weapon and attempted to wipe off the offensive sludge.

Kaidan’s jaw dropped, the action making him gag as he received a gigantic whiff of the Thorian. “You couldn’t smell that before?” he whimpered.

“I’m not a mammal,” the turian sighed, “so my sense of smell isn’t as strong as yours. Turians are avian-reptilian, if you could fit us into a category.”

The Lieutenant nodded, afraid to open his mouth again until they were out in the open air. He looked over at Shepard who was speaking with the asari that they had recently released. Hopefully they would be closer to finding the conduit, though nobody seemed to know what it was. At least they were able to follow Saren’s trail of crumbs. For an ex-Spectre, the turian sure left lots of loose ends. He watched Shepard go into a trance as the asari named Shiala gave her something called the Cipher. After a quiet minute, the transfer was over. Shepard looked ill.

“You look a little pale,” Kaidan mentally congratulated himself on choosing an inoffensive word, “we should get you back to the ship.” He stepped forward to help Shepard.

Shiala said something about staying to protect the colonists, but the Spectre couldn’t care less. She was about to collapse from the sudden influx of information. There were people, places and words in her head that had never been there before. She leaned heavily on her Lieutenant, glad that he was there to help her.

“Chivalry again?” she asked, swooning from the information swirling about her head.

“Always, ma’am,” he replied, looking her in the eyes.

Shepard smiled. She wondered why she always found herself attracted to brunettes with deep, sad eyes. He was really handsome and she felt almost drunken from receiving the Cipher. They began to stumble forward to fresher air, Garrus and Shiala taking up the rear.

Juliana Baynham waited with the surviving black-eyed and bruised colonists at the top of the stairwell. Her thanks fell on deaf ears as Shepard stumbled her way to the Normandy, her team members faithfully at her side. Thankfully, the colony’s water supply had been repaired while the team was on its way back from the ExoGeni headquarters; there was no way that Shepard was going to allow the stench of the Thorian nor the blood of the colonists to enter the Normandy. The first was a practical matter; nobody wanted to smell Thorian. The second was a superstitious matter; if the blood of the colonists was brought on board, it would surely bring bad luck. That was how Shepard saw things.

Williams made her way through the airlock to see to the Commander. The shore party would need to disarm before they got hosed off. She eyed the tarp in her hands; apparently it had been a messy job. The ship’s doors opened to reveal the ugly truth. Ash gagged when the smell hit her nose.

“What the hell is that?” she said, trying desperately to breathe shallow breaths.

“Projectile vomit,” the Lieutenant drawled, “you get used to it after the nerve endings in your nose get fried.”

“You know what, I believe you,” she replied, laying the tarp out. “Just put the weapons here. I’ll see to it that they’re as good as new.” She hastily spun around to grab Shepard’s arm. It was covered in blood.

“LT,” she shouted, “did you not see to the Commander’s arm? Or has chivalry died a gruesome death?” Ash knew she overstepped her bounds with her commanding officer, but she also knew she could get away with it. The LT was very relaxed for a commanding officer. Besides, she knew the man had a flaming crush on Shepard. His reaction to the cut would be priceless.

“That’s not hers, Ash,” he quipped. The Lieutenant disarmed with a smug look on his face. He suspected the Chief’s game but wasn’t quite sure what her angle was.

“Didja see my ass?” Shepard asked, turning around to show off her blood covered rear. “It’s like I perioded all over myself.”

“Um, Shepard,” Ash chuckled, “if your period looks like that, you may want to see the doctor and ask about spontaneous abortions.”

Shepard’s eyes widened. “But I haven’t had the sex in… hmmmm…” she trailed off, trying to remember, “since I enlisted, I guess.” The Commander made a pouty face.

“Oh Shepard, you will have sex. Trust me, sometime soon, you will,” Ash wiggled her eyebrows suggestively as she helped the delirious Spectre disarm. She looked over the shorter woman’s shoulder and caught the Lieutenant’s blushing gaze. “What the hell happened to her?” she mouthed silently. Shepard stumbled away to hose off.

“Put shortly,” he lowered his voice to keep the conversation quiet, “she had the memories of the entire Prothean race downloaded into her head. She’s been a little delirious since. That, and we had to do some unpleasant business not too long ago.” His concerned gaze leveled on the Commander.

“Unpleasant business?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Look,” he sighed and fidgeted in discomfort, “the geth were after a creature called the Thorian. It was able to mentally enslave the colonists and make them attack us. We weren’t able to save many.”

“So that blood isn’t hers,” Ash stated, her eyes drifting over to Shepard.

“No,” he said and turned to be washed as well. One thing irked him: was Shepard acting strange because of the cipher, or as a coping mechanism? He would be sure to find out, one way or the other.

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams looked down at her hand, wondering whose blood was on it. She knew that by following Shepard, she was likely to be involved in some shady business. Upon hearing the circumstances, however, she knew that Shepard made the right call. There would be other tough decisions made in the future and she trusted the Commander to make the right ones. Ash closed her bloodied hand. She would follow Shepard, even if it meant that the blood the Commander spilled would be on her hands as well.

She picked up the tarp of guns and headed for the Normandy. Ash forgot to wash the blood off of her hand outside.

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Shepard’s armor was considerably less smelly than it had been before. But it was still damp and it was beginning to stick to some rather unfavorable areas of her body. This was quite uncomfortable. She trudged to the Normandy’s doors, each successive step producing a grinding squeak that only the medium Colossus armor could make. This time, Shepard ranked the wedgie very high on the ridiculous scale. It hugged her more intimately than a thong, and briefly the Commander wondered if the armor was secretly trying to molest her. Again, the decontamination scan took too long.

This time, Lieutenant Alenko had enough energy to watch the Commander walk to the ship. Upon seeing the way her armor once again wedged itself into the crack of her bottom, he almost wished he was too exhausted to care. With each step she made, her lovely backside jiggled in the most wonderful way; it was the firm jiggle of toned muscle working under skin-tight armor. He had to mentally check himself from vocalizing his approval. And Shepard said she hadn’t had sex since she enlisted at eighteen. She was twenty-nine now. She’d be taking that armor off soon…

“Oh God,” he gasped, his head quickly snapping to the left to look at the wall to be blinded by the decontamination scan’s light. Momentarily, he was happy for the uncomfortable, confining armor; namely he was happy for the cup that conveniently hid his raging hard-on. What the hell was wrong with him lately? He sighed, knowing he’d have to be extremely careful with the zipper when he removed the armor.

The decontamination scan ended and each member of the shore party went to deal with their own problems. Shepard trudged to her quarters, her face completely blank. When the door shut behind her, the Commander’s face fell. Since when was it appropriate to make light of the death of an innocent civilian? And why did she have to act up at the most inappropriate times?

She slowly removed the parts of her armor that covered the zipper. This time, the zipper gave way easily, as if it sensed that the Commander had enough trouble already. The armor itself didn’t get the memo. Shepard tugged on the sleeves, yearning to break free from that which protected her from the bullets of the desperate, mind controlled colonists. As she freed her torso, she tried to remind herself that there were no other options. The sleeve of her armor, now clean, caught her view. She choked back a sob; it still didn’t make the job any easier and it sure as hell didn’t make her feel better. The ‘Dance of the Removal of the Armor Worn on Feros’ changed tempo as Shepard violently scrambled to get out of the uniform that made her kill the colonists. It clung desperately to her shaved legs, reminding her that she could never escape what happened. The Commander stumbled out of the bottom part of the armor.

As she tried to make her way to her bed, the pile of armor tripped her. Her vision blurred as she viciously kicked it away from her in spite. Shepard made her way to where she kept her clothes and selected a random pair of panties and a tank top. Though she usually slept nude, the events of the day made her feel awkwardly exposed, even in her quarters.

Hot tears trailed down her cheeks as she cocooned herself into the covers as far as she could. Shepard closed her eyes. She was a murderer; she turned Kaidan and Garrus into murderers too. Her legs drew up to her abdomen, her body assuming a fetal position.

A knock sounded. Kaidan, her accomplice, was at the door.

She let him in.